1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a thin film transistor (TFT) for an organic light emitting diode (OLED) device, and a method of manufacturing the thin film transistor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, society has become more information-oriented than in the past. To display and convey the desired information, demand for high-performance displays, which can rapidly represent various data in the form of images, graphics, letters, etc. has been on the rise. A consequence of this rising demand for high-performance displays is the sharp growth of display-related industries.
As communication devices such as personal computers (PCs), mobile phones, personal digital assistances (PDAs), etc., become slimmer and lighter, their display components are correspondingly required to be slimmer and lighter. For this reason, popularity of the heavy and bulky cathode ray tubes (CRTs) that once dominated the display industry is waning. Flat panel displays, such as organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, are rising in popularity as an attractive alternative to CRTs. The OLEDs, which are self-emission displaying means, allow low power consumption and are compact in size compared to other displays. Therefore, the OLEDs are often considered to be the “next generation displays” to dominate the display industry.
OLED displays include thin film transistors (TFTs) to drive the display signals. TFTs in OLED displays generally have more complicated structures than TFTs in other flat displays, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs), due to inherent limitations to the manufacturing processes and structures, which may make it difficult for the TFTs to be applicable to various TFT backplane structures and wiring.
Therefore, there is a need of TFTs for OLEDs having an improved structure to overcome such limitations.